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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29111019">like a remix</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Volts/pseuds/Volts'>Volts</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(of a character who has not yet come out), Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Families of Choice, Gen, Happy Ending, Infant Death, Minor Canonical Character(s), Misgendering, Non-Human Jaskier | Dandelion, Pre-OT3, Pre-Relationship, Resurrection, Temporary Character Death, Trans Jaskier | Dandelion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 03:54:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,669</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29111019</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Volts/pseuds/Volts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Yennefer smoothed the sand over her charge once more. Tears welling up and spilling over unclean cheeks. She’d waited, hadn’t she? Waited for that little puff of life that – that bastard King was always boasting about.<br/>Phoenix blood. Bullshit. </p><p>*</p><p>1222</p><p>Lady Alfreda Maria Pankratz, Countess de Lettenhove, and her fiancée, Karolina of Hagge, walked hand-in-hand down the sands.<br/>“Is that a jellyfish?” Alfreda says, pointing toward a lump on the shore in front of them.<br/>“No, a turtle maybe?”<br/>They go over.<br/>It’s much worse than a beached turtle.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jaskier | Dandelion &amp; Original Female Character(s), Jaskier | Dandelion &amp; Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Original Female Character/Origninal Female Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>106</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>The Witcher Quick Fic #05, Trans Characters in The Witcher Universe</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>like a remix</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is written for the Witcher Quick Fic Challenge.</p><p>WARNING: This fic mentions canonical infant death, it's not explicit and there is a happy ending. There is also brief non-malicious misgendering of a child who will eventually come out as transgender.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>How do you kill a bird?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You cut out its voice box.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>How do you kill a bard?</em>
</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p>Yennefer sat staring out at the sea. Her clothes were waterlogged. Her hair imbedded with sand. She was bleeding, somewhere.</p><p>Not that any of this mattered.</p><p>Fuck the King of Aedirn. Screw Queen Kalis of Lyria.</p><p>Poor-</p><p>She smoothed the sand over her charge once more. Tears welling up and spilling over unclean cheeks. She’d waited, hadn’t she? Waited for that little puff of life that – that <em>bastard </em>King was always boasting about.</p><p><em>Phoenix blood</em>. Bullshit.</p><p>That assassin had known where to strike out to kill the Queen, but Yennefer had hoped, <em>hoped</em>, for this baby. The knife hadn’t struck her on the throat.</p><p>Nothing had happened.</p><p>The fire hadn’t been passed down.</p><p>She said one last, silent, goodbye, and staggered to her feet. There was a celebration happening in the town. She wasn’t in the mood for jollity or merriment.</p><p>She started a long trek that would take her along the cliff top to the fishing village a mile away.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>When he was 8 years old, Julian Alfred Pankratz chose his name from a book of heraldry and family genealogy. He didn’t <em>mind</em> the name his mothers gave him, but he felt like it belonged to a different person, not him.</p><p>He presented the book to his Ma and Mama that summer afternoon as they sat in the walled garden, reading. The gentle smell of honeysuckle and sea salt complimented the warm early evening air.</p><p>“Ma, Mama,” he stood, clutching the giant tome that was almost as big as he was.</p><p>“Yes, sweetheart?”</p><p>“My name is Julian Alfred Pankratz,” he announces loudly. He’d spent 3 hours deciding this afternoon. His mothers had looked in on him as he lay on his front in the library, surprised to find him so quiet, but they’d known he was doing something monumental.</p><p>“Really?” Mama, Karolina, says, putting down her book, “That’s a lovely name.”</p><p>“Julian was Ma’s Great Grandfather. He had the amphitheatre built on the rocks.”</p><p>“I didn’t know that. That’s a perfect name for you, you love going to the theatre!”</p><p>“You don’t mind?” Julian says, voice squeaking in happiness.</p><p>“Of course not!” Ma, Alfreda, says, laughing and holding out her arms, “You’re my little buttercup, my little fire feather.”</p><p>He falls into his mothers arms.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>1222</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A desolate beach, at sunset. Lady Alfreda Maria Pankratz, Countess de Lettenhove, and her fiancée, Karolina of Hagge, walked hand-in-hand down the sands. Their wedding was scheduled for the following month, their families were thrilled. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>They thought nothing could dampen their happiness. The sun was out. The breeze cool. But there was an acrid burnt salt smell ahead of them. Bonfires were usual, people smoking freshly caught fish on the sands was a normal evening occurrence. But the beach was deserted tonight, most of the residents of the seaside town enjoying the engagement celebrations taking place in the town square.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Is that a jellyfish?” Alfreda says, pointing toward a lump on the shore in front of them.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“No, a turtle maybe?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>They go over.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It’s much worse than a beached turtle.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Karolina gasps, her hands going up to her mouth. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Oh, gods,” Alfreda croaks.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Someone had clearly tried to bury the poor thing, the sand around the-the baby is disturbed, a hollow dug out. Water lapping around the sodden shawl that’s wrapped around the body. It’s singed, flakes of charcoal floating in the water. There’s small pieces of white and blue eggshell floating too.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>There’s sand over their face.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“We,” Karolina cries, “We can’t leave it, them, here.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“No, no,” Alfreda agrees, “Lets, uh, lets,” she, her hands shaking, reaches out to pick the baby up. “We’ll, uh, bury her properly.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Poor little girl. What on earth had happened to her? Had she drowned? Smoke inhalation? There’s blood on the side of her head.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Both women are crying as Alfreda pulls her close. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“We should name her. Bury her in the family plot,” Alfreda says sniffing, rocking the bundle in her arms.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Suddenly there’s a loud, melodious, wail and –</em>
</p><p>
  <em>-Alfreda is suddenly holding an armful of squirming infant. Legs kicking, arms flailing, the baby hiccups amidst her crying.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Wh-what?” Karolina gasps, her arms reaching out to help Alfreda try not to drop the sudden ball of energy and life in her arms.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I don’t-” Alfreda says, bouncing the baby, her voice already raising to the pitch used around babies, “I, hello, darling!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The baby coughs, wailing, smoke seeming to pour of the poor things mouth.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I think she’s got something stuck in her throat!” Karolina says, leaning in, “Hello. Let me look, hey, sweetie!” And she cups the baby’s cheek and reaches in as gently as possible to the baby’s mouth. She pulls out a small, downy, orange feather.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The baby quietens down, hiccupping quietly.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“What?” Alfreda says, “Oh, there, there.” And she bounces the baby, “What?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Karolina is looking at her with an incredibly fond look on her face.</em>
</p><p>“What?”</p><p>
  <em>“Nothing,” Karolina says, softly, “But we are keeping her, aren’t we?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Later that evening, the engaged pair sat by the bonfire with their new child between them. Already their families were welcoming the new addition to the family.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>As per Lettenhove tradition, the brides wove and plaited dune grass into flower crowns and garlands. Karolina placed one around Alfreda’s neck. Karolina made a small one and placed it around the baby’s neck. The baby gurgled and made starfish hands towards the flickering flames of the fire.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Her mothers pulled her to safely and kissed at her cheeks with joyful affection.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>The child, who’d later become Jaskier, had a normal childhood. He played in the street, kicking rocks in puddles with the other children, he played at tightrope walking along the high walls. When his cousins, from Hagge, visited they played skipping in the town square and they put on plays in the small theatre Ma had erected at the end of their great hall.</p><p>He held people spellbound with his singing, his everyday speech was often rambling, ongoing, but when he <em>sang</em>… Oh, people, believed what he sang, when he sang it from the heart. He once reduced the King of Kerack to tears.</p><p>But no one could deny he was odd.</p><p>Every child dreamed of flying, whether it be down the stairs or over the towns and rivers. But Jaskier felt weighed down on earth. When he cried, he chirped like a bird. Bath time, he hated bath time. Quite a lot of children hated baths but the idea of water, water anywhere near his naked skin, filled him with a full panicking feeling of dread. His mothers had to make it as warm as possible, set the bath as close to the fire as was safe, and towel him dry so completely flakes of dead skin seemed to shower off of him.</p><p>They called him an angry kitten when he yowled at them from under the bubble bath. That made him scowl even more.</p><p>One day he crawled into the fire and sat there. It had burnt white hot for a moment but then it was like a warm embrace. He loved lying in the dry sand of the sand dunes, the little grits of sand getting in every crevice. In between each toe, each finger, behind the ears, in his hair, up his sleeves.</p><p>On his 13<sup>th</sup> birthday his mothers sat him down and told him of how they found him on the beach. They showed him the feather he’d almost swallowed. When he went to Oxenfurt the following year he looked it up. The wildlife book was no help, the feather resembled no Redanian nor Keracki birds. On a whim, looking for poetry inspiration, he opened a book of folk tales:</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>
    <span class="u">The Phoenix</span>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>An avian-draconid creature living in the Dragon mountains. They are worshipped in the East. This immortal being has the ability to rebirth itself in flame when injured or weak. </b>
</p><p> </p><p>Jaskier scoffed and moved on.</p><p>He didn’t think of it for some years except to sneer at the boasts made by the last King of Lyria, as taught in his geography lessons.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p>Setting, on a quiet lake bank in Northern Redania.</p><p>“I JUST WANT SOME DAMN PEACE!”</p><p>“WELL, HERE’S YOUR PEACE!” The sound of shattering pottery pierced the air.</p><p>Jaskier choked, oh gods he couldn’t breathe.</p><p>Fuck.</p><p>He couldn’t…</p><p>He fell back into Geralt’s arms, blood bubbling out of his mouth. Something was trying to burst out of him.</p><p>This was –</p><p>This was –</p><p>Oh gods –</p><p>He could remember sand, sea, fire… he just needed to move through it, let <em>it</em> carry him through it. But something was stopping the heat, the fire building from his belly, choking him, squeezing, swelling up in his throat.</p><p>He had a vague memory of Geralt dumping him down beside two naked women before everything goes black…</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Queen Kalis never told her husband about her family condition. He found out anyway, his obsession to father a son becoming more manic with each daughter she had. Kalis tried to take an interest in the daughters she had, secretly organising for her oldest Meve to have sword fighting lessons in secret, away from her husband’s knowledge. But after each pregnancy and each daughter her hopes dropped. Months of her life, months of tiredness and pain, she felt, wasted just making her husband angry.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A phoenix was a rare and magnificent creature, with the ability to change shape as a dragon does. They were occasionally spotted in the mountains in the far North. Their feathers so rare, their song so enchanting. Their blood was said to have healing properties. They were rumoured to have an unconscious form of precognition, where their own personal lives were concerned. An inkling to their destinies.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>To have one in court, well, it was every King’s dream. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>About as useful as that violet eyed mage was, Kalis thought bitterly as her throat was cut. Half phoenix as she was, she burst into flames, her ash mingling with the sand. Her own father had been beheaded.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Her song was over.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>34 years later, in white hot flames, her son awakes gasping.</p><p>He wakes to a room on fire. His throat feels raw, like he’s inhaled a vat of pepper and chilli and swallowed an entire ginger root.</p><p>He coughs. Smoke has filled the room, there’s a woman in a black dress coughing. Geralt, there’s Geralt, crashing through the door.</p><p>There’s something in his mouth. He spits. A feather? What the fuck has happened here?</p><p>“For Fuck’s sake Jaskier! Move!” Geralt’s throwing Aard after Aard at the burning bedpost.</p><p>Oh shit oh shit oh shit. He realises he’s <em>in</em> the bed that is on fire.</p><p>Jaskier jumps off the bed, hops across the room, and was suddenly doused in water. The, it turns out, mage sending a jet of ice-cold spray around the room.</p><p>“What the fuck was that?” Geralt and Yennefer growl at the other. They pause as they take in the other’s ire.</p><p>Jaskier, in preparation for what’s about to come, holds his hands up in innocence.</p><p>They round on him.</p><p>“How could I? I mean!?” He had a distracting itch on his shoulder blades, “How could I have possibly, uh, done, all this damage…?”</p><p>They look around the room.</p><p>There are a few candles rolling over floorboards covered in a thin flood of water. The curtains on the four-poster are still smouldering, charcoaled fabric congealing on the floor. Geralt’s aard has sent rather a lot of the mage’s possessions flying. A window has shattered.</p><p>This seems rather familiar.</p><p>“I didn’t light those candles!” he protests.</p><p>“I hadn’t either,” the mage says scowling at him with a hard glare, “I hadn’t got around to it.”</p><p>“Geralt?”</p><p>“Not me!” he growls, still looking horribly crabby and unwashed, desperately in need of a relaxing bath.</p><p>“Then we are at an impasse. Your room, clearly, spontaneously combusted. Or – or not!”</p><p>She glares at him again, “Just say your last wish and get the fuck out!”</p><p>“What? What? Right, I wish – I wish- I wish for my back to stop itching! Fucking hell!!” He strains a hand around his back to try to scratch, holy fuck.</p><p>“It didn’t work.”</p><p>“No shit!” Jaskier says, still trying to itch that fucking little bast-</p><p>“I think <em>I</em> have the wishes,” Geralt admits and Jaskier forgets about his shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>He’s in his late 30’s and still afraid of water. Not scared-scared but he doesn’t <em>like</em> it. He throws as many bath salts as he can fit in one hand into Geralt’s bath. The Witcher desperately needs it, he’s fought 3 drowner nests in a row without so much as a wipe down with a clean rag and stinks to high heaven, but once Geralt’s done, it’s Jaskier’s turn.</p><p>Bubbles, nice smelling shampoo, and the fancy soap he got from Novigrad last summer. Anything to make it feel less like he’s being weighed down, chilled, or slowly drowned.</p><p>There’s also another reason he doesn’t want a bath. He should see a healer about it but what if it’s bad news? What if he has some sort of tumour on his back? They itch and ache day and night, they protest at being lain on, so he’s now taken to sleeping on his front.</p><p>He could ask Geralt?</p><p>He couldn’t ask him. Geralt gets this pinched look on his face every time Jaskier mentions the passage of time or his own mortality.</p><p>Besides, if he were dying Geralt would surely have smelt it, right, with that witchery nose?</p><p>He puts it out of his mind as he rushes through his bath, cleaning as thoroughly as he can and as quickly as possible.</p><p>He forgets about it as he serenades the innkeeper’s sister, Nadia, and is shooed, laughing, out of her scullery.</p><p>He hums loudly to distract himself from the itch as he walks beside Roach and Geralt and makes an even bigger performance than usual in their parting as they reach a crossroads. Geralt going East, Jaskier West.</p><p>He shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly as he takes a cross country detour, the quicker he gets there the quicker he can lose himself playing in the Rosemary and Thyme before the last leg to scholarship, students, and allowing Shani to examine his back.</p><p>The itch is the last thing on his mind as he ascends an abandoned tower, alike in appearance to those which beautiful maidens are imprisoned atop of. Ivy twists up the outer wall. Curiosity has won over sense.</p><p>It overcomes him as he overlooks a ruined floor, the roof crumbling around his ears, a large section of the tower missing. A tightness in his shoulders, a manic elation in his chest. He has the mad urge to step over the edge.</p><p>He doesn’t want to. There was a throbbing in his head, piercing his temple.</p><p>He does.</p><p>The crumbling floor makes the decision for him, a supporting beam cracking under a sudden unexpected weight.</p><p>Something hot, searing hot, burst out of his back and catches him before he hits the ground. A tightness in his wrists burns and flames lick up his arms, lighting his doublet. The pain in his head becomes unbearable. It rips through his face, peeling back skin and-</p><p>He falls to his claws, <em>claws</em>, and lets out a trill that ripples out and breaks the ground in two, a large crack in the forest floor about half a mile long.</p><p>He had 4 claws - he was under the impression Phoenixes only had 2 - and 2 large wings bursting out of his shoulder blades. Feathers were raining down around him, shedding old ones and carpeting the floor. Absently, by some instinct, he preened them with his beak.</p><p>A shout rang out.</p><p>A lone town guard carrying a spear edged forward into the clearing.</p><p>Oops.</p><p>Jaskier raised his hands, arms, in innocence, only he supposed it looked like he was rearing onto his hind legs. The guard threw the spear. It easily pierced his newly fragile ribcage, shattering bone and bringing him to the floor.</p><p>He thought he’d be gasping, crawling on his knees – do phoenixes have knees? – to a place to die in safety. Instead, a warmth rushed over him, a burning in his heart spreading outward, flickering to every feather, every claw, to the end of his beak. As the flames rise higher and higher, so does he. He wasn’t sure where the flame began and he ended. He felt himself curling up, growing smaller and smaller, in a moment he’d be an egg, he’d hatch out from his very own funeral pyre.</p><p>He doesn’t want to be a baby again, he resisted, spreading his wings out and stretching his claws. He sang loud and mournful into the afternoon light, the flames of his song, his old life, rippling through his throat and -</p><p>Pop.</p><p>He awoke, covered in ashes. He had fingers and toes again. Hair. He stood as shakily as a toddler, he might have overdone it and shaved a few years off accidentally. There was a carpet of flowers surrounding his nest, interspersing the feathers. The guard was sitting under a tree, staring into space as if enchanted by something. He was staring at Jaskier’s rather naked form, but not as if he could actually see him.</p><p>Oh shit.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p>They know quite a lot about draconid’s in Zerrikania, don’t they? The books in Oxenfurt library had been pitifully unhelpful and Geralt less so, he claimed Phoenixes didn’t exist for Melitele’s sake!</p><p>He <em>was</em> a fucking Phoenix!!</p><p>When feathered and beaky he was about the size of a horse, about the same size as Geralt’s current Roach. He has scaly legs with beautiful red scales ending in bird like claws. He can tuck his inexplicable forelegs into his feathers. His wings are the length of this body in royal reds and oranges and golds, the feathers blending into the feathers growing on his back and on his head. His tail had large tail feathers in beautiful burgundy.</p><p>Experiments in actual flying required space and privacy. So he went home.</p><p>His mother’s manor on the cliffs had a large walled garden. His parents weren’t surprised he wasn’t human. They let him practice jumping off the battlements, Mama clutching her scarf to her face as his wings caught him lower and lower and Ma made twig ‘X’s’ on the ground for him to practice precision landing.</p><p>In, uh, - bird? Dragon? – his other form, he could charm anyone with his song. The guard in Redania had recovered after a day of wandering around rather dazed and dreamy, but he’d probably always be rather confused about what he saw and heard, as if he’d had a spectacularly weird dream.</p><p>His ‘human’ voice, Jaskier was happy to note, did not suddenly have the same effect. Maybe people had been always a little more in awe of his voice than with other bards, but they certainly weren’t walking around trying to talk to trees like poor Markus had been.</p><p>But whilst he has a rough knowledge of his new self, he doesn’t actually <em>know</em> anything.</p><p>So when a man, smelling of brimstone and dust, interrupts what is surely going to be an interesting conversation with 2 horse thieves, and is accompanied by two extremely formidable Zerrikanian warriors, Jaskier takes it as a learning opportunity.</p><p>These two warriors, Téa and Véa, don’t seem to specially want his attempts to ingratiate himself into their good books. He sighs. Maybe this dragon at the top of the mountain will be able to help him?</p><p>“So what do you know about Phoenixes?” he asks - he might as well <em>try -</em> as they walk up the mountain. Geralt has dropped back to talk with Yennefer.</p><p>They exchanged an eyeroll but eventually responded.</p><p>“My aunt saw one once, in Kovir,” Téa said, “She said he was very beautiful, but secretive. She waited 3 days and he did not come back.”</p><p>“Kovir. Right. But, practically. Uh, how many times do w-they, uh, regenerate? And can they be killed?”</p><p>“Yes, with a slit to the throat. For the Phoenix its cry is its life. As it dies it rebirths itself in its flame and its song brings it back to life from the ashes,” Véa says.</p><p>“It’s their soul,” Téa clarifies with a solemn nod.</p><p>That, wow, that resonates. When he’d been attacked by the Djinn and he’d been unable to speak, he’d thought his life was over. He’d hadn’t cared less if he had died, his life would have been over if he’d not been able to sing again.</p><p>The feeling welled up in his throat, a phantom swell of emotion. He finds himself nodding and nodding, agreeing to a question he hadn’t been asked.</p><p>Right.</p><p>Walking along a rickety plank of a shortcut isn’t what he’d call especially safe. Yennefer could probably portal herself to safety. Jaskier could catch himself, on his wings. If Geralt falls he’ll die. Borch, Téa and Véa? Yarpen and his team? They’d be dashed on the rocks below.</p><p>Sure enough, the planks break, a great cavum opening below them.</p><p>Borch falls. Like a horrible nightmare Téa and Véa fall after him.</p><p>A bubbling anxiety rises in his stomach as he realises what he’s about to do. With a devasting, apologetic look towards Geralt he steps of the plank.</p><p>Geralt and Yennefer’s cries follow him as his descends below the mist and spreads his wings. He’d just have to trust Yennefer not to let Geralt do anything stupid.</p><p>He’s too late he’s too late he’s too late he’s too late … actually, where the fuck are they? He’s lowered his nose in a dive, trying to see beyond the mist. There’s a cry ahead.</p><p>Holy fuck…</p><p>A golden dragon stands before him on the floor of the canyon, Téa and Véa on its back.</p><p>At the last minute he pulls out of his drive and transforms mid-air, landing on booted feet and folding in his wings as his toes touch the floor.</p><p>“What the f-! Now! This is not playing fair!” He stands, hands on hips and thankful that he’s got the hang of keeping his clothes with him. Who knew polymorphism was so difficult?</p><p>He isn’t pleased that Téa and Véa are looking at him more appreciatively now that they’ve seen his plumage, what was wrong with his sterling personality?</p><p>“Now, now, fledgling!” Borch teases, his golden head shimmering in the dim light.</p><p>“So, what the fuck is this whole hunt about then?!” he says, looking up at him and his, two, grinning followers.</p><p>Geralt’s look of surprise when he and Yennefer reach the top to see him standing there, already settled in, is worth the uncomfortable flight to the top of the mountain. He does not recommend dragon flight, Borch’s back is all bony. Quick though.</p><p>Geralt hugs him so hard he almost breaks Jaskier’s ribs. Yennefer is looking at him, grudgingly impressed.</p><p>“How?” She asks with a raised eyebrow, carefully nonchalant.</p><p>“Well, uh…” and he does his best to explain. He doesn’t especially want to tell Yennefer; after all, he knows that she has less than pleasant plans for the dragon.</p><p>“You’re hurt?” Geralt asked, holding Jaskier out from him. Jaskier and Téa and Véa had made a tincture out of Phoenix feathers and some of his blood.</p><p>“Well, uh, good news! She’s on the mend, the dragon that is. I, uh, what would you say if I told you I was a Phoenix? And that Borch was a golden dragon?”</p><p>By the time the Reaver’s arrive the <span>next day, <span>Myrgtabrakke is on the mend and</span> Yennefer</span> has protected the cave from any outside invaders. The egg can now hatch in peace.</p><p>Borch goes out to greet the dwarves, a couple of back molars in his pocket.</p><p>This run of good fortune doesn’t mean it doesn’t all blow up in everybody’s faces. Geralt and Yennefer’s relationship, uh, being fiery at the best of times is downright explosive right now. Jaskier doesn’t pretend to know the ins and outs but...</p><p>And Jaskier has been keeping secrets of his own. He gave Yennefer a couple of feathers and fucked off, as he was asked.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>Reborn from the flames’</em>, that’s what people said. Bullshit in her opinion.</p><p>Yennefer had staggered weakly away from Sodden. Up had been down, down had been up. Trees had spun around her head.</p><p>Tired she felt so tired, all the time now.</p><p>Waves crashed around her. She tasted salt and grit in her mouth, her body screamed in pain as the water rushed over her.</p><p>A phantom, half remembered cry echoed in her feverish ears. She shouldn’t be here, she doesn’t want to be.</p><p>
  <em>Regret regret regret</em>
</p><p>She tries to get up but her feet barely walked, they fell, barely supporting her as she staggered-</p><p>-<em>through the charred forest, ash at her feet. She could hear people calling for her. Tissaia, Geralt, a mental prod from someone she didn’t know. What little lunch, dinner, breakfast, she’d eaten, ended up on the forest floor. Stars sparkled in front of her eyes, stabbing with white hot pinpricks of light.</em></p><p>
  <em>Spinning- </em>
</p><p>-she awakes as her stomach turns over again, the memory of burnt pine and flesh hitting the back of her throat. The – <em>ground -</em> pillow swims up to meet her.</p><p>She needs to open a portal and get back to Tissaia. Fight any stragglers.</p><p>“<em>You’ve done enough, Yennefer,”</em> the memory of her mentor’s gentle voice soothing a worry she didn’t know she had.</p><p>“No,” she chokes, again, “I can fight.”</p><p>“Rest now,” <em>someone, </em>someone gentle and kind, says. So, she does.</p><p>The next morning, she comes around to someone knocking on the door.</p><p>She <em>must</em> have made a portal, Yennefer thinks sluggishly, as she blinks awake. The walls are painted in a sunny yellow, there’s a small window letting in a weak winter light bordered with painted roses. A heavy red and white blanket weighs her down in a warm embrace. There’s dried lavender hanging from the beam.</p><p>There’s a strong smell of salt in the air. She certainly isn’t in Sodden anymore. A sensory feeling of déjà vu overtakes her, she’s been here before.</p><p>A woman walks in, she’s between the ages of 60 and 70, her grey/brown salt and pepper curls lie flyaway over her shoulders.</p><p>She smiles widely when she sees Yennefer awake, “Oh thank goodness. You’re here to stay this time, I think?”</p><p>“Where am I?” Yennefer asks warily, the only person who only looks at her with such a motherly look nowadays is Tissaia and she’s nowhere to be seen. This woman is so unsymmetrical and untidy that Tissaia would have had a breakdown upon meeting her.</p><p>“Lettenhove, Kerack. We found you wandering along the beach. Now,” she sits on a rickety chair and pulls it up to the bed, “Now, I have 3 potions for you to take.This one is a salve for your burns,” she holds out a little blue ceramic tub, “It may sting a bit. This one is for aches and pains – my wife, son, and I used to take them for cramps when we were younger. It tastes foul but Jaskier said you’d be more than up for the challenge-”</p><p>“Wait? Jaskier?” Yennefer tries to sit up properly.</p><p>“Of course, he’s our son. Your other friend is off creating a subterfuge right now, making as if you’re all off to Kaedwen, but the young girl is here. She sits with you most mornings.” The woman continues, “Now this third one is experimental but Julek thinks it’ll work.”</p><p>The third bottle, clear glassed and showing an orange tinted liquid which swirled ominously of its own accord.</p><p>“He burnt one of his own feathers in the making of it and it contains 3 drops of his blood. My wife and I have been using a salve for our old age aches and pains for the last few years, but this-” the woman shrugged.</p><p>“What’s your name?”</p><p>“Alfreda, Countess de Lettenhove,” the Countess said, holding out a priceless, rarer than could be imagined, bottle of Phoenix restorative in her hand as if it were something as banal as burn cream.</p><p>Yennefer smeared burn cream on the worst of her ailments, took up Jaskier’s challenge of drinking the foul-smelling and tasting pain relief, and hesitantly took a spoonful of essence-de-feather-and-blood. Her mouth sang loudly in protest and exaltation at the sheer heat of the potion. She coughed.</p><p>Alfreda leaves to allow her to get up and dressed. Finally.</p><p>As she exits her room, Jaskier rounds the corner and gives her a blinding grin she isn’t sure is warranted considering the animosity they’d had at their last meeting.</p><p>“Oh, there you are!” he says, like she’s been keeping him waiting, “Ciri has been waiting for you. Geralt, as Ma no doubt said, is taking contracts and ‘acting’ as if he’s in mourning for his beloved child surprise on his way to Kaedwen, though he’s no seasoned stroller I must confess. Also Triss has been in contact, she’s fine, as is Tissaia.”</p><p>She feels herself relax slightly, the knowledge that her friends are okay soothes something within her. Now she has another focus.</p><p>“Take me to her.”</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Ciri sits cross legged in the courtyard of Jaskier’s parents’ manor house. She can hear the waves crashing over the cliffs. The anxiety of the constant relocations has been soothed by the last few weeks of staying here in Lettenhove. Geralt had been set to head East but after only a week’s travel, Jaskier had joined them with news of an avalanche blocking the path up to the ruined keep.</p><p>He’d invited them back to his parents’ home.</p><p>And now she sat trying to weave grass into a crown. Geralt had promised her that her training would start as soon as he returned. Now that Yennefer was here, maybe things would be more interesting? Alfreda and Karolina were lovely, of course they were, but they reminded her of her grandmother – in a topsy-turvy <em>soft</em> way – far too much. These garlands were for a festival the town held every year. These ones would be hung around as decoration, but others would be made on the day to gift to loved ones.</p><p>Truthfully she was rather bored.</p><p>Jaskier and Yennefer came and joined her. Jaskier immediately sinking to sit beside her, his hands instinctively reaching out for grass stems and plaiting deftly. Within minutes he had made something half wearable.</p><p>Ciri gave up her own wreath.</p><p>“Now,” Yennefer said, “How am I to assess your work ethic if you give up so quickly? I don’t want a student so apt to abandon half finished work.”</p><p>Ciri scowled.Yennefer met her scowl impassively.</p><p>Jaskier laughed and plopped his basic circlet upon Ciri’s head.</p><p>“There’s a room on the 2<sup>nd</sup> floor hardly used, that could be your room Yennefer, now that you’re out of the sick room.”</p><p>“Good idea,” Yennefer said, ignoring Jaskier’s dramatic gasp over her praise, “We can start tomorrow,” she met Ciri’s eyes with a stern eye.</p><p>Ciri nodded mulishly.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p>Ciri splashed in the waves a little way off, trying to skip stones. Yennefer had never learned and Jaskier was worse than rubbish, so she was learning by trial and error.</p><p>Yennefer looked out at the sea, to the dull grey horizon. The wind blew her hair from her face and made it thicker with salt. She recognised where she was now, 40 odd years later.</p><p>Jaskier came to stand next her, hands in the pockets of his bronze coloured suit.</p><p>“Penny for your thoughts?”</p><p>She ignored him.</p><p>“I made this for you. Maybe you could make one for Ciri?” He held out a wreath, intricately woven and decorated with red berries, and nodded over to where the princess was comparing rocks for their suitability.</p><p>“I hatched here, you know,” he continued, “On this very beach.”</p><p>Yennefer looked at his profile. There was hardly any resemblance between the man next to her and the woman who’d abandoned him to be killed by assassins. They had the same blue-grey eyes, perhaps.</p><p>She accepted the held-out wreath.</p><p>“My mothers found my one night, on a romantic stroll,” he turned to face her and looked at her so sincerely that her ribcage felt exposed, “Just about where they found you.”</p><p>She watched as seagulls dipped below the waves in search of fish.</p><p>“Thank <em>you</em>, Yennefer.” He gave her a small smile, clasped her shoulder, and walked away back up the beach to watch Ciri.</p><p>She didn’t know how he knew it had been her. Maybe he’d gone through the records of the court of Aedirn and Lyria and had found out that she’d been the one in charge when Queen Kalis and her child had perished. Maybe Phoenixes had longer memories, fuck’d if she knew.</p><p>She’d buried him alive, for fucks sake, and he was <em>thanking </em>her.</p><p>There was a twisted feeling of sick relief in her stomach, creeping up through her ribcage to her throat. He was happy. He had a family.</p><p>Tissaia had once told her no one would ever love her. Fuck that. She’d rejected all the other naysayers in her life. Why should Tissaia be the exception? Tissaia who’d told her to<em> control</em> all her emotions?</p><p>A weight lifted from her shoulders.</p><p>She smiled wryly and opened her eyes to what she had in front of her.</p><p>A home, if she wanted.</p><p>A family.</p><p>Reenergised, she smiled. She had a purpose. Tomorrow, she’d see if Ciri had the magical abilities of her Mother and Great-grandmother.</p><p>Geralt would return soon.</p><p>Absently, Yennefer twisted the garland Jaskier had handed her.</p><p>Hope sprang within her burnt and neglected heart stuttering awake in its warm light. There was something here, wasn’t there? A new song for that dratted bard to sing.</p><p>She walked over to where Jaskier and Ciri were having a splash-fight, a spring to her step.</p><p>Her fire relit.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title is from Phoenix by Fall Out Boy<br/>I used the Witcher Wiki for lore on Phoenixes, or else I made it up.</p><p>Please comment and kudos!! Find me on tumblr @whatkindofnameisvolta</p></blockquote></div></div>
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